


Sisterly Feelings

by pikkugen



Category: Finnish Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 10:23:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikkugen/pseuds/pikkugen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of A Bit Of Scrap wanted to continue, so here it is... Kullervo by the eyes of his younger sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sisterly Feelings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digitalis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalis/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta for suggestions and corrections! Whatever remains is my fault entirely.

When my brother came home unexpectedly four years ago, my mother was overwhelmingly happy, of course, him being the oldest of her children and all. He wouldn't tell us how and why he had been released from slavery, only that he had been. He looked at me and our baby brother with some scorn, tossed his ashen hair that was growing over his eyes and turned away. Mother tried to tell him all about our life here, but I could see he wasn't too interested. Well, I thought, two can play that game. I picked up little Kaukamo and started to play peekaboo with him in an opposite corner of the house. 

Mother fussed over Kullervo that whole evening, until father gently told her she should let the lad get some sleep. I went to bed too and thought it would have been better if it had been Annikki who came home instead of him. I missed my older sister; still do. And for that I blame my brother entirely.

Over the next year I slowly learned to kind of like him. He was moody at times, always a little unpredictable, but when he laughed or smiled it was sudden and light, like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. He was a bit clumsy with Kaukamo and wouldn't touch him much, and at first he didn't seem to know how to talk to me. But as the time passed he started to show us some of the tricks he knew. He could make small birds come near, he could make small objects talk, and he was far stronger than he seemed. So strong, in fact, that he often broke tools and other things trying to convince people of his strength. He was just fifteen, after all; nobody expects a skinny lad of fifteen to break two oars just by rowing a boat, or to rend the fishing-net just by pulling it up. Father had to give him a serious talking-to, and that made him clam up again. He sulked for days afterwards. 

Of course mother had told him all about our oldest sister who had gone missing two summers ago, and I could see the pain and longing in her eyes every time she mentioned her. Annikki had been thirteen, old enough to survive a few nights in the wild, and and since we had both roamed around the forests and the fields all our lives it was unlikely she could have simply lost her way. Then there were the Rus, who occasionally came and raided women and children and cattle from villages and homesteads, and we lived quite close to the border. We were deep enough in the woods that we wouldn't be noticed, or so father believed, but you never knew. 

Mother never spoke of bears or wolves aloud, and besides Annikki would always have had a knife with her, as I did. That wouldn't have helped her much, but at least she might have left a mark for us. Instead she was simply gone, as if swallowed by the earth itself. 

Mother had been beside herself of grief that summer, and it had taken a long time for her to heal. Now she seemed to become different again, staying by the gate sometimes, gazing towards the blue pine forest and humming to herself. Once I heard her say to father: "He came back, you know. Maybe..." But father just told her to be quiet more brusquely than I've ever heard him speak. In a way I was glad. I missed Annikki, but she was gone, and now we had this strange gloomy brother in her place. 

Time passed, quietly and steadily as it does when there is much work and few people to do it. I was becoming a woman, and Kullervo seemed to finally find the man in himself. He did what he was told to do, never overdid it, and seldom broke things any more. Maybe that was why father finally allowed him to go and pay our land-taxes. Or maybe it was that father was feeling a bit weak; I think that was the winter he had broken an arm while hunting an elk. Whatever the reason, he packed our worth of squirrel-furs and fox-furs and dried fish into his big sledge and gave the horse's reins to Kullervo. 

"You're a man now, my son," he said. "Take care of the taxes, don't tarry overmuch and speak mildly if you must speak to the officials. Come back safely."

Kullervo gave one of his rare smiles and drove out in a puff of snow, showing off his horsemanship. I watched him go, my tall brother of nineteen, in his thick fur coat and a sack full of food my mother had given him thrown in the back of the sleigh. 

"That was a good thing your father did," said mother to me when I returned inside. "A young man like Kullervo ought to be out and about . Maybe he'll even find a nice girl for himself, wouldn't that be nice, eh?" I rolled my eyes - I had no interest in my brother's or anyone's love affairs, there was still a lot of little girl in me. If he brought home a girl when he returned - now that would be a different thing. I was bored of only seeing my family and our nearest neighbours, two other frontier families a day's journey northeast and east from us. The village my mother had lived in was quite a way back west, at least three day's journey in summer with a boat or a horse, and certainly not any less in winter. We expected Kullervo back in bit more than a week, so I took advantage of his absence and felt like I could breathe freely in the house again. Somehow his moodiness seemed to fill the small space where we lived.

I didn't know it was to be the last peaceful week in a long time. 

He came home one day riding the horse - the sleigh was gone. He was pale and haggard, his eyes staring like a madman's, his ashen hair flowing wildly. Mother ran to the gate and asked him what had happened. At first he just sputtered some kind of nonsense about how he should never have been born and how he was the most wretched of men. Finally mother managed to get him inside and coax the whole tale out of him; how he had paid the taxes like he'd been told, but during the journey home he had stopped to talk to some girls, and everyone of them had scorned him... except one. At this mother clucked and tsk'ed and finally clapped her hands in joy - "Who was she? When are you going to bring her home? What is her name, who are her family? Oh, never mind, I'm so happy you finally found a girl for yourself!" She made to hug him warmly.

Kullervo almost threw her away from him, stood up and yelled so loud it must have shaken the very trees in the forest: "She was my sister! ...She was Annikki, mother." He crumpled into a little heap on the floor, trying to weep but not succeeding. Mother and father were frozen where they stood, Kaukamo was hanging from my skirts, sobbing very quietly and scared of the yelling, and I remember just standing there thinking, Well, isn't that just the way my stupid brother would handle courting. At least Annikki is alive. 

"What happened to her, Kullervo?" I asked when no-one else would say anything.

"We... talked about our families only...afterwards," he said slowly and darkly. "She... threw herself down into the river at the waterfall. I couldn't stop her."

Everyone was still and quiet for a moment, except little Kaukamo, who was still weeping with his face pressed into my skirts. A fierce hate rose in me, but before I could do or say anything, mother said, her voice breaking, "At least we know now what has become of her." 

I wanted to scream and slap them both, but again Kullervo stole my chance. He said with flaming eyes: "I should die, too. I should go and drown, or fall on my sword, or hang..." 

Mother helplessly raised her hands, tears flowing from her eyes. "Don't," she said. "My firstborn. Don't. Nobody knows, you could go and hide somewhere deep in the woods, stay there until the pain passes, and come back..." 

He pushed her hands away, and finally I had my chance. I took a step forward and slapped his face as hard as I could. "You idiot, haven't you done enough harm already? You've never been useful in your life, why don't you make something of yourself before you die? All my life I've heard mother rambling about my oldest brother, how great he is and how mighty a magician, that even Untamo couldn't kill him when he was a baby... I haven't seen anything except childish tricks and adolescent bragging - why don't you actually put your gifts in use? Kill old Untamo, for example."

He stared at me, his eyes huge and dark and anguished, the red mark from my hand showing brightly on his pale cheek. 

"Thank you, sister," he said slowly. "I will." And just like that he turned away, walked out into the snow and left mother wailing on the floor, father stunned at the table and and me trying my best to handle the mess he'd left behind, the miserable idiot.


End file.
